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Day Trippin’

by Tom Weir

We talked all morning about the horse
that, if we’re honest, none of us actually knew existed

but it seemed worth it just to get you into the car,
to stop shouting. We mentioned it so often

you began to repeat it from your child-seat
like a mantra, and you’ll never know the relief,

having arrived and not been able to see a stable,
having stalled you with an ice-cream which you wore

like a glove as it melted over your hand,
of finding the woman who showed us where

the horse rides took place, where you waited
so quietly in line, where I stood and watched

as you approached the man with a five pound note
scrunched up in your tiny hand. You spent

the rest of the day repeating the words too little
like a radio breaking bad news every hour on the hour.

We took you down to the lake and watched
you throw stones at the water, watched clouds fall apart

and mend as rowing boats left the harbour and you
sat still, refusing to join another queue.

About this poem

First published in 2014.

'Day Trippin' was commended in the National Poetry Competition 2014.

Filmpoem by Francesca Beard and Jason Larkin. Commissioned in collaboration with Alastair Cook and Filmpoem.

From the judges Day Trippin': ''A poem that could be mere charming anecdote is raised high by its details – melting ice-cream worn ‘like a glove’, ‘bad news every hour on the hour’, clouds falling apart – until the incident echoes and aches with the whole vertiginous spectrum of parental care, reminding us how its saddest hours take the longest time to fade.'' - Glyn Maxwell.

Tom Weir was born in 1980. He has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and his poems have appeared in various journals. He was one of the poets featured in the 2012 anthology: Lung Jazz; Young British Poets for Oxfam and has been shortlisted for the Melita Hume prize. His pamphlet, The Outsider, won the 2014 Templar IOTA shots competition and his first full collection, All That Falling, is due out with Templar later n 2015.

He is a founder member of AFC Wimbledon and still eagerly awaits the call to become their first poet laureate. He was commended in The Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition in 2014.